{"id":98556,"date":"2025-08-21T05:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T05:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/98556\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T05:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T05:01:07","slug":"astronomers-discover-a-previously-hidden-moon-orbiting-uranus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/98556\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Discover a Previously Hidden Moon Orbiting Uranus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers spotted a never-before-seen, bite-sized moon orbiting Uranus, bringing the ice giant\u2019s follower count to 29. The moon is so small and faint\u2014well below the detection threshold of NASA\u2019s Voyager 2 probe\u2014that scientists believe Uranus may host many more undiscovered, tiny moons.<\/p>\n<p>The moon, provisionally named S\/2025 U1, first entered the view of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on February 2, 2025. Further imaging led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) shows that it sits at the edge of Uranus\u2019s inner rings, about 35,000 miles (56,000 kilometers) from its center in the planet\u2019s equatorial plane. <\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most striking aspect of S\/2025 U1 is its tiny size. Assuming it has a similar reflectivity to Uranus\u2019s other moons, the object measures only about 6 miles (10 kilometers) across\u2014roughly a quarter the length of a marathon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a small moon but a significant discovery, which is something that even NASA\u2019s Voyager 2 spacecraft didn\u2019t see during its flyby nearly 40 years ago,\u201d said Maryame El Moutamid, an SwRI scientist, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/blogs\/webb\/2025\/08\/19\/new-moon-discovered-orbiting-uranus-using-nasas-webb-telescope\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NASA statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo other planet has as many small inner moons as Uranus, and <a href=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/a-closer-look-at-uranuss-moons-reveals-a-surprising-dark-side-2000615729\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">their complex interrelationships with the rings<\/a> hint at a chaotic history that blurs the boundary between a ring system and a system of moons,\u201d added Matthew Tiscareno of the SETI Institute, who participated in the discovery.<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2000645677 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/uranian-rings-satellites-new-moon-1082x1280.jpg\" alt=\"Uranian Rings Satellites New Moon\" width=\"1082\" height=\"1280\"  \/>The solid ellipses indicate rings, while the dotted lines show the orbits of many of the inner moons. Credit: SwRI <\/p>\n<p>\u201cLooking forward, the discovery of this moon underscores how modern astronomy continues to build upon the legacy of missions like Voyager 2, which flew past Uranus on Jan. 24, 1986, and gave humanity its first close-up look at this mysterious world,\u201d said El Moutamid. \u201cNow, nearly four decades later, the James Webb Space Telescope is pushing that frontier even farther.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not much is known about the moon\u2019s exact composition, but the fact such a small object was hiding in orbit hints at the presence of even more moons like it, Tiscareno added. For the time being, the team is looking into the archives to find a suitable name for the moon, whose names mostly come from Shakespearean characters. Hopefully, we\u2019ll soon hear about the new name, along with more details about this latest addition to the Uranus family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers spotted a never-before-seen, bite-sized moon orbiting Uranus, bringing the ice giant\u2019s follower count to 29. The moon&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[24391,16492,79,12546],"class_list":["post-98556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-james-webb-space-telescope","tag-planetary-science","tag-science","tag-uranus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}